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6. The Path to Funded Contentment with Brian Portnoy · Planning & Beyond® - Where financial planning meets human understanding

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to be a behavioral advisor from either a Brian Portnoy lens or Andorra Shaping Wealth lens?
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I don't know where I end and shaping wealth begins.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: This is the pool I swim in.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the podcast where financial advising meets the art of meaningful conversations.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Ashley Kwame.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: As a certified financial behavior specialist and a passionate advocate for personal growth, I'm here to help you elevate your practice and deepen your connections with clients.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: In each episode, we dive into the intersection of psychology, therapy, and financial advising.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: You'll discover practical strategies, insightful stories, and expert interviews that will empower you to not only excel in your profession, but also thrive in your personal life.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Together, we'll explore the human side of financial planning, from understanding client emotions to mastering the nuances of effective communication.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: We'll also focus on your own growth because the best advisors are those who are continually evolving.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Get ready to transform your practice and yourself.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is Planning and Beyond.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: What does it take to be a behavioral advisor in the current landscape of financial planning?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do your clients actually want a behavioral advisor?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the show dedicated to helping you deepen your relationship with your clients and yourself.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Ashley Kwoming.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm joined by Brian Portnoy, founder of Shaping Wealth, author of multiple books, including The Geometry of Wealth, which I just had the pleasure of reading this summer.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Don't think I shared that with you.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And my husband, Clayton, his preferred conference buddy.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let's be honest.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: He's the best.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Clayton prefers, he prefers to hang out with you at conferences, not me.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's a win-win as I as far as I see it.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: He is the cat's pajamas.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Did I miss anything there in that intro?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's all good.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Brian.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad that you're here hanging out with me today for what I hope will be a fun conversation.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Before we kind of dive in, I'd love for you to share kind of high-level founder of Shaping Wealth.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've been following you guys for two years.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's been two years since we kind of became sort of like friends.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you knew that, but I had to go back and look at our feed to see that.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm just glad you're saying that we're friends.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think of you as a friend.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: I just found out that you think of me as one.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: So this is this is already going great.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's been, it's, it's been a couple plus years in this uh behavioral space.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, we're we're kind of uh hanging out with the same crew.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So share with us here kind of high level about shaping wealth.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Share with maybe advisors who have no idea what it is that you guys do and how you help advisors.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Share with us a little bit about that.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: So we are a global coaching and content platform focused on human-first financial guidance, which is actually in our world common parlance.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: But for those for whom it's not common parlance, it's the idea that advisors are not only technical experts in investments and estates and taxes and insurance and other fields, they also help their clients navigate life's inevitable but unpredictable changes.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: And over a course of a lifetime, you go through dozens of changes, disruptions, transitions, and have been doing very little over the last 13 plus years, other than coaching, counseling, working with talking to financial advisors.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: My back of the envelope is that I've met something like 15,000 advisors over the last decade.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: I've observed that 99% plus of them care deeply about the families that they're taking care of.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And in so doing that, it requires a certain skill set beyond just being a quote unquote people person, certainly goes beyond being a good salesperson, in understanding sort of how we tick as humans, who how what we're wired to be, who we're wired to be.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's a host of issues that I suspect that we're going to get into.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've built a team and I've built a whole series of experiences that invite advisors to grow and share and learn alongside this growing global community of advisors.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: And one thing I'll say about the geometry of wealth, which, you know, was my second book published in 2018, is that, you know, I think it was on page two.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: On page one, I made the distinction between being rich and being wealthy.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: And rich is the search for more.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: And as Don Draper said in Mad Men, happiness is that feeling right before you want more happiness.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like the search for more is exhausting because what you want when you get that next thing is the next thing.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: And there's genetic or evolutionary reasons for that.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Wealthy is different.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I coined this term funded contentment.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: The idea that true wealth is the ability to underwrite a life that is meaningful to you, no matter how you choose to define that at any moment in time, and choose to update that through life's ebbs and flows.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: That idea of funded contentment, yes, I guess I coined it, but I feel more lucky than good in seeing how it's landed with regular people and couples and families all over the world who have said, well, that's what I really want.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want to understand where money fits into a meaningful life, as opposed to when you really push on it, just being richer.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so that idea of funded contentment for everyone is the vision for shaping wealth, the mission, like what do we do as a business?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: We train the guides on the journey toward funded contentment, and we train advisors as player coaches.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you're guiding others, you're coaching others, but guess what?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Advisors are people too, and they themselves want funded contentment.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: And we can maybe lean into some of those topics related to advisor well-being and their own search.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's one of my it's one of the things that I respect so much about what you guys at Shaping Wealth have built is not only is it the training, is it the application on a client end, but there is an advisor end as well.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is that intersection there.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm working clinically, at least like with couples, talking about that both and that reciprocity there between them.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: But also, at least in the mental health space, like we're trained to also understand how we impact that system as well.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, the practitioner brings all of themselves into the space of working with clients and knowing that dynamic requires you to know about yourself and all that there is.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, all of that to say, it's one of the reasons why I tote and talk so very highly about you guys and the programs that you offer is because you, from at least where I value and stand, you guys really you get it more so than any other platform out there that I've seen.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if I've ever put it that way.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to what I'll say is that human first advice starts first with the advisor as human.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a certain irony to the client orientation of the modern advisor.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, you show up wanting to serve your client, help them achieve their goals and dreams, help them mitigate risks, all the things that you as an advisor do.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: But the irony is that in the world of comprehensive or holistic financial advice, when you're doing more and more and more, the advisor herself gets lost in that process.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you know better than I that there's no Kevlar vest for the emotions that are shared in an advisor-client relationship.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so chances are that your clients are sharing with you their deepest and darkest.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: They're talking about real life issues with marriage and kids and community and the world at large.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you, as the advisor, you you you are a caring, empathic person as you're engaging at that emotional level, because there's nothing more emotional than money.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: And we know this from a kind of rigorous research point of view.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Read the research.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's no topic that's more emotionally charged than money.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Fear, greed, joy, envy, anger, hope, you name it, it is so wrapped up with that emotional lightning rod known as money.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: So you're sitting there in that forum providing comprehensive or holistic advice.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Everything is in bounds.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, guess what?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Advisor well-being suffers as a result.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I've learned this in a very direct, powerful way over the last few years, because many of my good friends are financial advisors.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I say to them, How are you?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, What do you mean?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, literally, like, how are you?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because from the outside, boy, you're you're making great money, you're building a business, you're doing good work for people.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, lo and behold, they're burnt out, there's anxiety.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Because of comprehensive or holistic advice, you're now doing 27 things instead of 14 things.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so imposter syndrome comes up a lot.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's the big trend toward independence, you know, the independent RIA.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, independence is sometimes code for alone.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't have support.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Even when you're at a bigger firm, you don't necessarily have support because even the especially the more senior you are, the less vulnerable you're willing to be in front of others that are looking to you for leadership.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so the entire topic of advisor well-being has kind of in some sense snuck up on us and become such an important topic for conversation and coaching in a way that I couldn't have predicted, say, three years ago.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's interesting.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Is some of that maybe what contributed to the developing of shaping wealth is that realization around financial or finance advisor well-being?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it wasn't the thought going in, but it quickly became evident that advisor well-being was the beginning of the process, not a bolt-on or a one-off seminar.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so we've um at Shaping Wealth created, for lack of a more poetic term, what I call the inspired growth flywheel.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: And what is that?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, first of all, it's the recognition that as business owners or business people, advisors care about two things.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: They want to keep their existing clients and they want to get new ones.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's really straightforward.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And sort of the spirit of much advice is, well, okay, then I'm going to serve the client in a variety of ways.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: That makes them satisfied so that they stick with me and I have more wallet share and they give referrals and all of those really good things, like the KPIs in a corporate sense.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if you just decide to serve the client and you skip over who you are in the process, you end can end up in a bit of a ditch.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so this inspired growth flywheel that we've created in terms of our business model or business flow basically says that the entire process of human first advice should start with advisor engagement.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that is a pivot for a lot of people.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, again, ironically, they're thinking about the client first and themselves at best second.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like, hey, let's start with you.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so a lot of our coaching programs do touch on like, well, who are you?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: What are your values?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: What how does your money story impact the way you've chosen to enter this career and build the practice in the way that you have?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's my increasingly strong view that when you start with advisor engagement and the advisor feels seen and heard and valued as a human being before a professional advisor, they then lean into the client engagement in a way that they hadn't before.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: And the client says, wow, this feels a little bit different.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is really good.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm feeling seen and heard in a way that I want, that I hadn't before.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that creates really positive benefits for the client in terms of more likely to articulate your goals and achieve them and all of those good things, which has positive benefits for the advisory firm in terms of growth, which creates more opportunity to invest further in advisor engagement strategies.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: So for us, it all starts with the advisor and the team and then the client.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: And funny enough, a lot of advisors resist that model because they want to get straight to the client engagement.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And we say, time out, let's at least take a breath and a moment to think about where you're coming from.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's a bell curve.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Some people reject that.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Some people are like, thank God, yes, I want to deal with this.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have sort of the fat middle where, okay, let's see where this goes.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a fascinating experiment.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can imagine.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And kind of goes into a little bit of that question I posed at the very beginning around what does it mean to be a behavioral advisor?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And some of that you were just speaking to.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Really starting kind of with the advisor first, understanding themselves in a more complete and whole way, cultivating that awareness.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then I love the transition, right?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Then to the team and then the client.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Can you say anything else, though, around specifically about what does it mean to be a behavioral advisor from either a Brian Portnoy lens or Andora Shaping Wealth lens?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I don't know where I end in shaping wealth begins.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's sort of this is the pool I swim in.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and for the sake of everyone listening, I'm using the terms behavioral, human-first, and human-centric interchangeably.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: So when I talk about being you sometimes you hear about the human-first financial guidance, behavioral advice, let's not split hairs or dance on the head of a pin here.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is, I think, a global movement that is accelerating that increasingly large firms, some of the biggest firms in the world, let alone smaller RIAs, are beginning to invest serious dollars into because it's basically sort of investing in and valuing human capital at the advisory firm and sort of looking at that from inside the firm and then its external, external benefits.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, what is behavioral advice?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: The first thing I want to do, and maybe hopefully the thing that lands the most, is an important but nuanced distinction between clients and humans.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: So client-centric advice and human-centric advice are not the same thing.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Back in the day, it was customer-centric advice.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: You were selling a product, an insurance policy, a mutual fund.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that certainly still takes place, but good luck trying to distinguish yourself in the modern marketplace, saying that I can give you better access to better mutual funds.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: That day is over.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so over a half generation or so, we've leaned into so-called client-centric advice, which is more personalized.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, tell me about yourself.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: What are your hopes and dreams and fears?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do maybe some personality testing.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so you get sort of a profile of the client, and then you serve, you serve that individual or that couple or that family.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And don't get me wrong, client-centric advice is great.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: The line into human-centric advice, among other factors, is accepting that, and I love this line from Dan Gilbert, a famous uh psychologist, that human beings are works in progress who mistakenly think they're finished.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Let's not only accept, but embrace the fact that our stories are being written and rewritten over time, and that we, as behavioral advisors, are to some extent ghostwriters for other people's stories.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're helping them move along life's journey, not telling them what to do, but being a capable guide and supporter of not just what they want to do, not just what they want to have, but actually who they want to be.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: So in human-first or human-centric behavioral advice, identity is implicated.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: In client-centric advice, it's goals-based wealth management.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: I want to retire at age 65 with a$3 million portfolio with a 4% withdrawal rate.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: That means I have the following cash flow, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we could create that spreadsheet in about 10 minutes.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's valuable.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: But the next level is pushing on this string, on this thing called goals, recognizing that goals have a whole variety of psychological complications, and understanding that many of our goals are often scripts received but unquestions.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, those are inaccurate narratives.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so what's sitting behind what you really want?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's purpose, it's meaning, it's answering the why.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: I want to retire at age 65 with a$3 million portfolio.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Why 65?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Why$3 million?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Why, why, why?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of things that we can interrogate in a very positive, constructive way that will allow the financial planner to create a much richer, nuanced, achievable financial plan.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so we pivot from goals-based wealth management to purpose-based wealth management.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: I front the frontier here is I would push it even further.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Guess what sits behind purpose?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's identity.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: We have 20 to 25 identities, each of us.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I'm a dog owner, I'm a business owner, I'm a Steelers fan, I'm a Chicagoan, I'm lots of things.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: And some of those identities are more important in general.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: And at any moment in time, different identities get triggered.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so equipping the modern advisor to understand that someone's showing up as messy but beautiful, and that you have the capacity to understand the various forms of who they are and how they're evolving.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: This might sound woo or squish, but there's actually very methodical, meticulous skills that you can build in this area to simply listen better to what someone is telling you.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because chances are, when you're really digging in on the financial planning process, you are not talking about$3 million at age 65.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: You're talking about who it is they want to be in 25 years.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: What an awesome conversation.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it's actually where people want to go.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: And from a commercial point of view, it's where the referral-worthy moments come from.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because the individual or the couple says, geez, I feel more seen and heard than I ever have before.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even know financial planning was about this.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I was going to have to listen about the listen to the earnings estimate on the Dow Jones or some other nonsense that no one could give a flip about.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: So there's other elements to human first advice, but I'd say that pushing well beyond goals-based wealth management into a much more nuanced sense of what it means to be human and where money fits into the human experience.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's shaping wealth.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: We've built a whole series of frameworks and mental models that we deploy to be applied in the day-to-day of an advisor's workflow.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: I love what you've talked about here around it's more than just the goals, right?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's identity, there's meaning and purpose.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we certainly talk about that in the mental health space.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: That is part of that, what is below the waters iceberg, right?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Metaphor there.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And to add on just to everything that you were saying, where this identity may also show up for advisors who are digesting this conversation right now and they're like, okay, like I'm, I think I'm kind of wrapping my head around this.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: I see where this identity comes up a lot, especially for entrepreneurs around the issue, or not issue, I shouldn't say issue, but around the time of retirement.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Should I sell the business?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Succession planning.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe from an outside standpoint with their advisor, it's they're not wanting to let go, they're not wanting to maybe initiate and getting that valuation, or they don't have a succession plan.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that this is important because if you're an advisor and you have clients that are like this, or there's some resistance, maybe, if that's an appropriate word here, around just retirement, that could be a good opportunity to have some of this identity conversation.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: That might be one of those red flags of like, hey, maybe this is some identity stuff coming up here.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe I need to apply some of these behavioral advisor tools here that Brian is sharing with me, or thought processes around having a different conversation, one that they feel seen and heard, and that maybe really gets at the root of what is going on.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're touching on maybe probably the best example of this.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Retirement is a made up thing.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was made up in the mid 19th century in Prussia for very specific political reasons.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: The age of 65 is the retirement level.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's a long story, but it's just a bizarre artifact of some stuff that was going on in Central Europe at the time, transported to the US, and now we Have something called retirement, which in some sense is, well, do something you love for decades and then stop doing it.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then do what?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: A really positive trend in financial planning is I think there's an increasing ability for advisors to distinguish or to frame a conversation on retiring from versus retiring to.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm guessing a lot of your listeners appreciate that distinction.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: When we think about successful retirements, it usually anchors on or is undergirded by the retirement to conversation.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you're tired.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you didn't love your job, or you did your job, but it's just time to move on.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: You feel like doing the next thing.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Again, not just what do you want to do, but who is it that you want to be in this next stage of life?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think all things equal, we should think of our prolonged longevity as a blessing.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't that long ago that we died at a much younger age.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: So now that we're living well into our 80s and maybe even into our 90s, and you think about our kids, Ashley, like who knows what the actuary tables are saying about what their lifespan is going to be.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to retire at age 65 and then have 30 years to go?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: What are you supposed to do with yourself?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is absolutely legitimate territory for a financial planner to dig into these issues.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, as a mechanic, as a technical expert in cash flow and insurance and long-term care, but also as a guide on having conversations about identity, about behavior change, about social impact, things like that.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: It all becomes very real when you apply it in the day-to-day of your practice.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: I would agree.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing that you and I both know, and maybe some advisors listening to this may also know, but you, as the advisor, may very well be the only person in your client's life that they can talk to about these sorts of things.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you how many client meetings in the last year I have sat in on where the client or the couple have said, I can't talk to anyone in my family about this.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: I can't talk to this with my friends.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: They won't understand.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: They won't get it.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have anyone to talk to about this.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: So there's this realization I'd like to point out that as the advisor, this is also why it's important, is because your clients may not have anyone else in their life that they can have this kind of conversation with, all the more reason to be and build those skills of being a great guide that you've been sharing with us here.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: I agree with you agreeing with me.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: I agree with you agreeing with me.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, okay, Brian, you guys have this stat.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm shifting a little bit here, but you guys have this stat on your website.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a Fidelity study that I'm familiar with.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: But on your website, the stat from Fidelity, it says that 50% of investors believe that advisors should be helping them achieve their life's purpose.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I see this, I hear this from clients.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: What are you guys hearing andor seeing from advisors?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: What are they saying as far as the value that being a guide, being a behavioral advisor brings to the client and achieving that life purpose?
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I know we have that on our website.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: There's a bunch of stats out there that kind of speak to the evolution of the industry, and they wouldn't be on my site and we wouldn't be talking about them if I didn't believe them.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I want to throw a bit of nuance into the mix.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: So there are therapists, professionally trained counselors such as yourself and my colleague, Dr.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Joy Leary.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Financial advisors are not going to go down that path for the most part.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: There's another tier of life coaching.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: So there are some registered life coaching programs in the financial planning space.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, those have been around, you know, I think George Kinder first and foremost, but the there's that sort of life coaching approach.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it's great in certain regards.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: My general observation in talking to thousands of advisors every calendar year is that very, very few want to become a life coach.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Very few would say it's my goal to help someone discover their purpose in life.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: That said, almost all of the advisors that we engage with, and I took stats 101, so I know sample bias.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: So there's some sample bias in what I'm about to say.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: Most advisors don't, while they don't want to become life coaches, they would like to employ effective coaching techniques in their practice.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's fabulous.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: That actually opens a small door to a massive room where there's an opportunity to really make an impact on people's life.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Along the way, there are conversations to be had about purpose and meaning and identity, as well as goals.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, all of the technical pieces of financial advice.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think in this day and age, when advisors think about their competitive edge, just as business owners and commercial animals, they probably know it's not going to come from them finding the next NVIDIA or Amazon for someone's portfolio.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: It might not come from identifying the best insurance policy.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's probably going to come through deepening relationships that make a meaningful impact on somebody's life.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then that has positive implications for referrals and multi-generational wealth transfers and things like that.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, notwithstanding the quote that you mentioned, most advisors aren't saying my job is to help people find purpose.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: Most advisors are going to say, I'm here to solve the financial problems of my clients, but the behavioral advisor is very comfortable in appreciating the broader and warmer context within those decisions are made.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, the appreciation and nimbleness of coursing through those sorts of topics makes solving the more technical financial problems a little bit easier.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because what counts as a win, what counts as an objectively good outcome is actually a function of a subjectively framed guidance.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, BP, we have talked about a lot of different things today.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: And sadly, our time will be wrapping up here shorter than what I would really like it to.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Based on just everything that we've talked about, mostly you've talked about and shared, is there anything left on the table here?
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Loaded question, but anything maybe high level left on the table here that we didn't talk about that you feel like from an aspect of thinking about being a behavioral advisor that's important maybe for our listeners to know and hear.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: Boy, yeah.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: How do I kind of go through the sort of file system in my mind and pick one of like 12 things that are that are coming to mind?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: One thing I'll mention is that we started out shaping wealth a few years ago with the idea of permission and validation for the client.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Meaning, hey, we're not going to just talk about market prognostication and investment performance.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to talk about the things that really matter to you in terms of your goals and your dreams and your fears and just dealing with all of the noise in life.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we saw it as a two-step process of permission and validation, meaning that the advisor gives the client permission to go there, to talk about the things that they actually care about, to answer the only two questions that matter, which are, am I going to be okay?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: And how much is enough?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: So if we think about the evolutionary dynamic of survive and thrive, survive and thrive, it's not linear, it's cyclical.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: The two questions address survive and thrive.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: Am I going to be okay?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: Are my loved ones going to be okay?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: The human sense for danger is so unbelievably acute.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just not physical danger, it's psychological danger because we're relatively well-fed these days.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: We're warm, we're well fed.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that has actually had some negative consequences for mental health generally.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Let's carve out nine hours for a different call.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so permission to tackle the questions of am I going to be okay?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: Survival?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: How much is really enough thriving?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: And when clients can go there and they feel seen and heard, and they're like, wow, I really have a collaboration partner here.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: I have a guide.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: I have someone that I can trust.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: Big revelation again, a couple of years ago, we realized that it was the advisors themselves who actually needed permission and validation because they wanted to talk about these things.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: But it was either their firm who told them to stay on script, or they themselves would have to engage in a vulnerable process of accepting that they couldn't give two flips about where the S P 500 was.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: What they really wanted to talk about was these things.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I failed to mention the validation piece for the client, but also uh for the advisors.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: Permission, hey, you can go there.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: Validation, you're not alone.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Other people just like you worry about these same things.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's when you see shoulders come down, people exhale the whole the whole thing.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that's on the client side.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: We're seeing that now all the time on the advisor side.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm allowed to talk about this.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: This is kind of what I want to do anyway.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for reinforcing.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: We're not giving permission, but we're reinforcing that this is a totally legitimate and virtuous place to go.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: But also, directly, as well as implicitly, we're saying you're not alone because we we run coaching cohorts.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you're sitting there with a bunch of advisors from all over the world grappling with these same issues, you are not alone.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: People just like you are thinking about, challenged by, worried about, excited for the same things that you are.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: And if we know anything about the sources of happiness, we know that when we feel a sense of belonging in community, we feel pretty okay.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe not ecstatic, but we feel pretty damn good when we know that we're not alone.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: We've realized that the permission and validation dynamic that we're providing through our coaching and content programs to advisors is really landing well.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sitting here thinking about from a takeaway place, right?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: What are some kind of key takeaways?
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you've just really summed it up quite nicely, right?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: The power of permission and validation, not only for the client, but also for ourselves.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: That and seeking out community.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and that ability to seek out community in a way that helps you not feel so alone, which is important, very important.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: You and I were chatting kind of before our call here, just around maybe not specifically community, but just the power of having someone else in the trenches with you so that you don't have to feel so alone.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, Brian, this has been an amazing conversation.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate all of your wisdom and insight.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Could you share with our listeners maybe where they can find you and how they can learn more about all things shaping wealth?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: And what a good conversation.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: Just I really like talking to you.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, shapingwealth.com.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's really straightforward.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: Shapingwealth.com is our website.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a tab on there called Experiences.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we have a host of different programs.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: We have an immersive coaching program called Building the Behavioral Advisor.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: Not sure when this is launching, but our next cohort, Cohort11, is launching on September 24th of 2024, but that gets offered three times a year, roughly.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's a seven-week program.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: We frequently hear from advisors that it was transformational, not only to their careers, but their lives, because we do start with them as people and then later as advisors.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: Other programs in that vein, and you know, we're just out in the world giving speeches, doing workshops on well-being, on emotional intelligence, on storytelling, on navigating change.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so that whole host of offerings is there on shapingwealth.com.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: And for what it's worth, although I find myself much increasingly less active.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: I do have a, you know, I am on Twitter and I'm at Brian Portnoy.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Super fun to hang out with and engage with, and how we became friends.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, on and via Twitter.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you, Brian, for coming on and sharing all of your wisdom and insights.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: And for all of you out there, thank you for tuning in and allowing Brian and I into your ears and into your mind.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep planning, keep growing, and keep going beyond.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining me on this episode of Planning and Beyond.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you found today's insights valuable and inspiring for both your practice and your personal growth.
• 35:13
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• 35:18
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• 35:24
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• 35:32
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• 35:39
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• 35:43
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• 35:45
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• 35:49
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